This Sunday will be my second Mother’s Day since my mom left earth for her heavenly home. I have felt the pain of a child without a mother. This Sunday will also be my twenty-fifth Mother’s Day since I buried my baby boy. I have felt the pain of a mother without a child.
You can believe I get it when people say they would rather skip Mother’s Day altogether.
If this Sunday will be difficult for you, I want you to know that you are already in my thoughts and prayers. I wrote this Mid-Week Miracle in hopes of comforting you, and I trust you will be comforted by God himself.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4 NIV)
I happen to believe that God can redeem our most painful experiences. I have seen him turn my darkest moments into shining examples of his faithfulness and love.
I plan to share the promise of God’s miraculous redemption with a small group of teen moms that I will meet with later this month. Most of these precious teens are in foster care and have not had the best moms. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be fabulous moms.
The woman who invited me to come and share said, “It just has to be possible to overcome the hurts of rejection, and intentionally be different than the moms or mother figures we were raised with.”
I plan to tell the teen moms that learning the secret to overcoming rejection will enable them to pour out the love and acceptance their own mothers neglected to poured in.
With God all things are possible.
Even though I’m one of the privileged souls who grew up with a wise and loving mother, I happen to know a thing or two about overcoming rejection. In fact, I wrote a book about it called Longing to Belong: Discovering the Joy of Acceptance. In a chapter on overcoming abandonment issues, I noted that God is always with you. He is by definition omnipresent. If he is everywhere always, he must be with you where you are. Wherever you are. Always. God also chooses to be with you.
He actually compared himself to a nursing mother. The next time you see someone cuddling a baby, think of the words God spoke through the prophet Isaiah:
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. (Isaiah 49:15–16 NIV)
Perhaps you need to let those Bible verses soak into your soul.
You may feel alone. But you are never alone. Even if your mother abandoned you, her actions can’t erase the fact God carved a reminder of you on his hands.
You may have been rejected, but that doesn’t brand you as being unwanted or unacceptable. If you’ve been abandoned, I urge you to accept the fact that God will never leave you. He is with you now to heal you.
God’s constant, nurturing presence remedies the residual pain caused by past abandonment. The power of God’s love can cure rejection issues. You can begin the healing process right now by easing into the arms of God and tracing the imprint of you on his hands. Rest in the knowledge of your incredible worth. God will never reject, forget or abandon you.
You belong in his loving arms.
You may already know God as your Heavenly Father. According to Isaiah, God is also very much like a nurturing mother. This Mother’s Day, celebrate the fact that our multidimensional, all-sufficient God can satisfy your deepest longings.
Make a new Mother’s Day memory. Grab a copy of the children’s book by Margaret Wise Brown called Runaway Bunny and put yourself in the story. God is the loving and steadfast mother who pursues you relentlessly.
Psalm 139:5-8 NLT
You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!
I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
This Sunday, worship the God of all comfort who cradles you with care.
